Seven Days’ Leave *** (1942, Victor Mature, Lucille Ball, Harold Peary, Mapy Cortes) – Classic Movie Review 10,175

Director Tim Whelan’s 1942 RKO Radio Pictures black and white romantic musical comedy Seven Days’ Leave stars the irresistible combination of Lucille Ball and Victor Mature (borrowed from 20th Century-Fox).

Wartime GI soldier Johnny Grey (Victor Mature) is engaged to marry singer Mapy Cortes but now has just seven days’ leave to find a wife to gain his huge bequest of $100,000 from his great-grandfather in a will.

So he must figure out how to concoct a temporary marriage-of-convenience with his great-grandfather’s Civil War enemy General Havelock-Allen’s descendant – the lovely Terry Havelock-Allen (Lucille Ball).

Naturally, where there’s a will there’s a way, and Mature, Ball and several wireless acts manage to make it a pleasant one.

Ball is a delight as the future wife Johnny Grey has never met in this sprightly musical comedy, with the air-headed story little more than just a pretext to showcase the two stars plus some cheerful radio talents of the day: Ginny Simms singing ‘Can’t Get Out of this Mood’, Mexican star Mary Cortes dancing rhumbas and congas, and the 16-year-old Marcy McGuire performing ‘I Get the Neck of the Chicken’, as well as Freddy Martin and Les Brown and their bands.

Understandably, wartime audiences lapped it all up.

Also in the cast are Arnold Stang. Wallace Ford, Marcy McGuire, Peter Lind Hayes, Ralph Edwards, Ginny Simms, Mary Cortes, Harold Peary, Buddy Clark, Charles Victor, Addison Richards, Harry Holman, and Willie Fung.

William Bowers, Ralph Spence, Curtis Kenyon and Kenneth Earl are credited for the original screenplay.

© Derek Winnert 2020 Classic Movie Review 10,175

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